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UNIVERSITY BULLETIN 

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GcnColl (in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, extra number, 

page 151. April, L<117l 


The Early Life of Jefferson 

Davis 








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THE EARLY LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS 


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THE EARLY LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS 


To trace the ancestry of Jefferson Davis is a 'difficult and 
somewhat profitless task. The records of the southwest were, 
in the beginning, scanty and most of them have been destroyed, 
so that it is almost impossible to trace with certainty the history 
of any family bearing a name of common occurrence. The 
people of the southwest in his period, and for long after, cared 
little about ancestry, and most of the descendants of those who 
won the west know very little of their great-grandfathers. The 
early history of the Davis family is obscure because of the great 
number who bear the name and also because of the various forms 
of the name — Davis, David, Davie, Davies — often found in one 
group of relations. Nothing but authentic family documents 
can clear up the matter, and few of these are known to exist. 

There are many traditions, however, in regard to the ances¬ 
tors of Jefferson Davis, and the reader can choose among sev¬ 
eral. According to one tradition Davis was one of those who 
were not descended from Pocahontas, but in the Floyd family 
of Virginia a story has been handed down that he was a de¬ 
scendant of Nathaniel Davis, a Welshman, who married a child 
of Niketti, the daughter of Opechancanough, brother of Powha¬ 
tan.^ Another genealogist has come to the conclusion that the 
Davis family came from Wales, first to North Carolina, and then 
to Georgia.^ A Davis family in New England with branches in 
New York claims that the Davises of Georgia were an offshoot 
of their family that emigrated south during the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury. Jefferson Davis knew little about his ancestry and cared 
little; his father, Samuel Davis, had no great regard for an¬ 
cestry and told his children to date the family from the revolu¬ 
tionary war; he evidently knew little even of his own father. 
In the last year of his life Jefferson Davis made the following 
statement: ‘‘Three brothers came to America from Wales in 

1 Eeverend Edgar Woods, Albemarle county in Virginia (n. p., n. d.), 49. 

2 Manuscript written by Eeverend G. C. Smith of Macon, Georgia, and belonging 
to Mrs. T. M. Green of Washington, Georgia. 


152 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


the early part of the eighteenth century. They settled at Phila¬ 
delphia. The youngest of the brothers, Evan Davis, removed 
to Georgia, then a colony of Great Britain. He was the grand¬ 
father of Jetferson Davis.A recent genealogy by Major T. 
E. Davis, editor of the New Orleans Picayune,^ traces four 
brothers,— Samuel, William, Micajah, and Evan,—younger sons 
of John Davis of Shropshire on the border of Wales. These 
brothers came to Philadelphia in 1742. Later some or all of 
them went to Virginia—first to Alexandria, and next to Louisa 
county, whence finally the older brothers went to live near the 
present city of Lynchburg, while Evan, the youngest, went to 
Oglethorpe ^s colony in Georgia, settling near Savannah. 

Probably the most satisfactory of all the genealogies is that 
of Mr. Whitsitt, who traces the ancestors of Jefferson Davis 
back to ‘^John Davis of Pencader Hundred in the County of 
New Castle upon Delaware Turner and Anne Davis his wife.^^ 
John Davis, it appears, was a Welch immigrant, who signed 
with ‘‘His X Mark.^’ Evan Davis, his son, was born in Phila¬ 
delphia about 1702. He went to the Welch Neck settlement, a 
Baptist community on the Peedee river in South Carolina, and 
here married a Mrs. Williams, whose maiden name was Emory. 
Their son, Samuel Emory Davis, was the father of Jefferson 
Davis. Mr. Whitsitt proves that Jefferson Davis was mistaken 
in saying that his grandfather was an emigrant from Wales, for 
a letter exists written in 1823 from Philadelphia by Samuel 
Davis to his son, Jefferson Davis. In it he speaks of Philadel¬ 
phia “the most beautiful city I ever saw, the place where my 
father drew his first breath, and the place if I had applied some 
30 years ago, I might have been immensely rich, but l fear all is 
lost here by the lapse of time, yet I shall continue to search 
everything. ’ ’ ® This will confirm the Davis family tradition that 
the father of Jefferson Davis visited Philadelphia shortly before 
his death searching for the title to some family property, and 
was much disappointed in his undertaking. According to Mr. 
Whitsitt, Jefferson Davises great-great-uncle was David Davis, 

3 Mrs. Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis, ex-president of the Confederate States of 
America, a memoir (New York, n. d.), 1: 3. 

4 T. E. Davis, The Davis family of Bedford, Virginia (1898). 

5 William H. Whitsitt, Genealogy of Jefferson Davis and of Samuel Davies (New 
York and Washington, 1910), 13. 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


153 


whose son, Samuel, became well known as a Presbyterian clergy¬ 
man and as president of Princeton college. After all, I think 
that we can be certain only of these facts: that Evan Davis was 
bom in Philadelphia; that in middle age he went into the south¬ 
west to South Carolina and later to Georgia and that he left one 
son, Samuel Emory Davis, the father of Jefferson Davis. 

In going to the southwest, Evan Davis followed that current 
of migration which was rapidly pushing forward the boundaries 
of the colonies into the Indian country of the southwest. There 
were no bridges over the rivers about the middle of the eigh¬ 
teenth century, so the roads leading to the ferries were thronged. 
One of the most important roads led through Wilkes county, 
Georgia, and here Evan Davis came to settle. In time railroads 
and bridges replaced the ferries and the dirt roads, but more 
than a hundred years later, when, in 1865, war had destroyed 
railroads and bridges, ferries again came into use, and over the 
road that brought Evan Davis to Georgia came his grandson, 
the president of the falling confederacy, with the wreck of his 
government, to hold his last cabinet meeting within a few miles 
of the home of his ancestors, and then to go to prison with his 
great public career ended. 

Like the other southwesterners, Evan Davis became a fron¬ 
tiersman, and cleared land and fought Indians with his neigh¬ 
bors. About 1755, he married a widow, Mrs. Williams, who had 
been a Miss Emory. She had two sons by her first marriage, 
Daniel and Isaac Williams. To the Davises was bom, in 1756, 
one son, Samuel Emory Davis. Nothing more is known of Evan 
Davis. In the Davis burying ground near Washington, Georgia, 
in the midst of an open cotton field, the stump of a tree is pointed 
out which tradition says grew at the head of Evan Davis’s grave. 
All traces of the grave has disappeared. A mound nearby cov¬ 
ering the remains of an Indian chief fared better.® 

After his father’s death Samuel Davis lived on the farm with 
his mother and half-brothers until the revolutionary war began. 
The members of the family were all whigs. The Williams boys 
at once joined the patriot army and a year later Samuel, then 
seventeen years of age, joined Colonel Elijah Clark’s company 
which was at first occupied in collecting and carrying provisions 

6 Mrs. T. M. Green’s manuscript notes on the Davis family. 


154 


Walter L, Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


to the regular soldiers. After carrying supplies to his half- 
brothers he was under promise to return to his mother, but he 
did not return until the end of the war. Much of the time he 
was in service under Colonel Clark, as a private in a company of 
“mounted gunmen,” hence it is likely that he was in Howe^s ex¬ 
pedition into East Florida in 1778. His first serious fight was at 
Kettle creek in Wilkes county, Georgia, on February 14, 1779, 
where 400 whigs under Colonels Clark, Dooley and Pickens de¬ 
feated and almost destroyed a band of 700 tories under a Colonel 
Boyd, who had been ravaging the western frontier of the Caro- 
linas and Georgia and inciting the Indians against the whigs. 
After this campaign Samuel, then twenty years of age, raised a 
company of infantry with which he served as captain at the siege 
of Savannah and later at the siege of Augusta. He was active 
in the general movement which cleared the British from Georgia, 
South Carolina and North Carolina. The war in those states 
was between almost evenly matched contestants — the tories, 
aided by British troops and Indians, against the whigs. The 
conduct of the war was often barbarous, so fierce were the 
passions aroused on each side. When the long fight ended most 
of the tories were dead or had been driven away.^ 

Samuel Davis returned home to find his mother dead and her 
property wrecked. In 1785 he sold his share of the property, 
which consisted of 200 acres of land,® to William Gafford, and 
removed to Augusta where he was elected county clerk. For his 
revolutionary services he was granted two hundred and eighty- 
seven and one-half acres of land in Washington county, a new 
county then on the frontier. General Clark certifying to his mili¬ 
tary service.® 

About this time he married Jane Cook, a young girl whom he 

7 John B. Lossing, Pictorial field-hoolc of the revolution (New York, 1860), 2: 506, 
509; Don, Memoirs, 1: ch. 1; Henry Lee, Memoirs of the war m the southern depart¬ 
ment of the United States (New York, 1870), 353-357; Eeverend George White, His¬ 
torical collections of Georgia (New York, 1854), 607, 683. 

8 In the Wilkes county, Georgia, Heed hooTc A, 1784, 148, is the record of a grant 
of 1200 acres of land four miles south of Washington made to Samuel Davis for his 
services as a revolutionary soldier. This grant was later known as the Mound 
Place, from the Indian mound on it. It later passed into the hands of Gabriel 
Toombs. For this information I am indebted to Miss E. F. Andrews, whose family 
resided in Washington, Georgia. 

9 Davis, Memoir, 1:3; Belford's magazine, January, 1890; Mrs. T. M. Green’s 
manuscript notes; archives of the secretary of state of Georgia. 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


155 


had met during his military service in South Carolina. Tradi¬ 
tion makes her a niece of General Nathaniel Greene. Her son, 
Jefferson Davis, said of her; ‘‘She was of Scotch-Irish descent 
and was noted for her beauty and sprightliness of mind. She 
had a graceful poetic mind, which, with much of her personal 
beauty, she retained to extreme old age.^^ Of his father he 
wrote: ‘ ‘ My father . . . was unusually handsome and the 

accomplished horseman his early life among the ‘mounted men^ 
of Georgia naturally made him. He was a man of wonderful 
physical activity. . . The last time I saw my father he was 

about sixty-four years of age. He was about to mount a tall 
and restless horse, so that it was difficult for him to put his foot 
in the stirrup. Suddenly he vaulted from the ground into the 
saddle without any assistance. He was usually of a grave and 
stoical character, and of such sound judgment that his opinions 
were a law to his children and quoted by them long after he had 
gone to his final rest and when they were growing old. . . My 

father was a silent, undemonstrative man of action. He talked 
little, and never in general company, but what he said had great 
weight with the community in which he lived. His admonitions 
to his children were rather suggestive than dictatorial. ’ ^ The 
last survivor of the Davis household wrote of Samuel Davis and 
his wife that ‘ ‘ He was a man of culture and strictly a religious 
governor of his large family. So also was grandmother who 
survived him many years. Honor and truth were the principles 
they instilled. . . Grandmother was uncommon in looks and 

in intellect. Handsome in age,—very fair with large blue eyes, 
regular features and brown hair.^’^^ Samuel and Jane Davis 
were earnest Bible students, members of the Baptist church, and 
chose the names of all but one of their sons from the Bible. The 
parents of Jefferson Davis were not aristocrats, for there were 
none in the southwest; not common people for common people 
could not survive on the southwestern frontier. They were good, 
sound Americans of the border, of the class that has given to 
this country its best citizens and leaders.^* 

10 Davis, Memoir, 1:4, 5, 17. 

11 Manuscript reminiscences of Mrs. E. M. D. Anderson. 

12 In a letter to Mrs. M. E. Hamer, dated January 17, 1884, Jefferson Davis says 
that in 1823 or 1824, his father’s portrait was painted by an English artist named 
West. I have been unable to locate this portrait. 


156 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


For several years Samuel Davis lived on a farm near Augusta, 
but in 1792 he, with a relative named Pitchford, migrated to the 
Kentucky country. Both had the frontiersman’s desire to go 
further west where opportunities were better. Kentucky was 
soon to be a state and, most of the Indians having been driven 
out, it was the safest part of the unsettled frontier country. 
Pitchford settled in Allen county and Davis went on to Logan, 
settling in that part which in 1796 was organized into Christian 
county.^^ The first settlement in this county had been made in 
1785 by James Davis of Virginia. When Samuel Davis came 
Indians were still roaming about the less settled portions of the 
country. In this section there settled and lived for a while many 
families noted later in the farther west as state builders. On 
the fertile limestone soil, which had attracted him, Davis made 
good crops of wheat, corn and tobacco, and he also raised cattle 
and horses for sale. Tradition says that he also kept a ‘‘Way¬ 
farer’s Best,” an inn with refreshment for man and beast. The 
Davis farm contained about six hundred acres; the farm house 
was built on the site of the present village of Fairview, which 
was then in Christian county, and now is partly in Todd county. 
It was a “double-pen log house,” built of timbers squared by 
hand in the forest. There were two rooms on each side of the 
passage or hall, and two “shed rooms” in front were added 
later. The entire structure was held together with hand- 
wrought nails and wooden pegs. The windows were small with 
tiny panes which were probably put in after the Davises left 
Kentucky. The floors were of puncheons, and at each end of the 
house was a “stick and dirt” chimney; the doors were hung on 
wooden hinges and fastened with wooden buttons. In 1886 
Bethel Baptist church was built on the site of the house, which 
had been torn down, moved and rebuilt into a parsonage. At 
the Nashville centennial exhibition in 1896 the house was on ex¬ 
hibition, and afterwards it was taken apart and stored in Rich¬ 
mond, Virginia. Its present location is not known.” 

13 An account of this is given by Pitchford in manuscripts in the possession of the 
family. 

1* See article by M. E. Bacon in the New Orleans Picayune, March 14, 1909. 
When the church was built the congregation was anxious to have the title passed to 
them from the hands of Jefferson Davis, and so space for the church was purchased 
by Captain L. E. Clark, his brother, Captain M. H. Gark, and others, who deeded it 


1915-1916 


157 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 

In this house, in the part that, after 1819, was in Todd county, 
was horn on June 3, 1808, Jefferson Davis, tenth and youngest 
child of Samuel and Jane Davis. The rough cradle in which he 
was rocked is now in the Confederate museum at New Orleans. 
The name of the youngest Davis, contrary to the family custom, 
was not a scriptural one but was given in honor of the great 
democratic leader. It is not certain that he was given a second 
name. He himself used only the ‘^Jefferson,’’ but the West 
Point records and some of the army records frequently have 
the name ‘‘Jefferson F. Davis’^ and, once, “T. J. Davis. 
The Davis family lived in Kentucky until Jefferson was three 
years old, and only one fact of his existence there has ever been 
rescued from oblivion and that was that he was generally known 
as “Little Jeff.’’ His mother reared a young orphan with her 
son (the story of his mother’s goodness to all was handed down 
for years in the community), and in 1886 when Jefferson Davis 
went back to Fairview, Kentucky, to present to the Baptist 
church the land on which his old home stood he saw aged people 
who claimed to have been his playmates. 

About 1811 Samuel Davis, in orthodox western fashion, packed 
up and moved again, this time to the developing districts on the 
lower Mississippi. Many Kentuckians were at this period drop¬ 
ping down the Mississippi to the new state of Louisiana with 
their worldly goods on flatboats. Davis, coming from an in¬ 
terior county, made his move in wagons drawn by mules and 
horses. With him came all the ten children, but Joseph soon 
went back to practice law at Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Several 
negro servants accompanied the caravan and one whose name is 
remembered as Samson showed much fear of the wolves that 
sometimes howled around the camp at night. Much of the way 

to Davis in order that he might present it to the Bethel church congregation. Letter 
of Captain M. H. Clark to the writer, June 14, 1907. 

15 Jefferson Davis had four brothers and five sisters: Joseph Emory, a lawyer 
in Kentucky, later lawyer and planter in Mississippi; Samuel, a planter in Warren 
county, Mississippi, and partner of Joseph; Benjamin, a teacher and physician in 
Wilkinson and Warren counties, Mississippi; Anna, who married Luther Smith of 
East Feliciana, Louisiana; Lucinda, who married, first, Hugh Davis (no relative), 
second, William Stamps; Amanda, who married David Bradford of Louisiana; Matil¬ 
da, who died in childhood in Mississippi; Mary Ellen (Polly), who married Kobert 
Davis, brother of Hugh Davis. The brothers all became substantial men but none 
except Joseph E. and Jefferson entered public life. 


158 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


was through country in which there were scarcely any settle¬ 
ments and two months were taken to complete the long journey. 
Davis was bound for St. Mary^s parish, about 600 miles to the 
south, in southern Louisiana, where he settled on Bayou Teche 
near the present town of Franklin. Here the children suffered 
so much from malaria, and all were so harassed by mosquitoes, 
that after one year the family removed directly north about 
ninety miles to Wilkinson county, Mississippi territory, where 
Samuel Davis found a small farm that suited him, two miles 
from Woodville, the county seat. 

The place, later called ‘‘Poplar Grovefrom the large poplar 
trees on it, was a farm, not a plantation; it contained some 
cleared land and some fine forest. While building a house the 
Davis family, it is said, camped out. The last survivor of those 
who lived in the “Poplar Grovehouse has described it as “a 
comfortable brown cottage with servant’s outhouses” and an of¬ 
fice in the yard, “a plain but comfortable frame dwelling, one 
and a half stories high, of six rooms, four on the ground floor 
and two on the second, large brick chimneys, glass windows, and 
verandas the full length of the house. The ground on one side 
sloped down to the purest of springs with its crystal stream 
rippling through the forest. ’ ’ Mrs. Davis, contrary to the usual 
shiftless custom of the southwest, made the yard around the 
house into a flower garden; outside this, and divided from it by 
rose-hedges, were the vegetable garden and the orchard. The 
walks about the house were lined with sweet pinks, a favorite 
southern flower. A huge pear tree in one corner of the yard is 
said to have been the delight of young Jefferson Davis and his 
nephews and nieces. Under the fig trees were rows of “bee 
gums.” The old lady quoted above says: “The memory of 
the old home is to me ‘like dew on a parched and withered 
garden. ’ ” 

A description of the environment which to a slight extent, per¬ 
haps, influenced Davis’s early life may be of value. Before 1830 
the bulk of the white and black population of Mississippi was in 
the southwestern corner. The people were a heterogeneous 
mixture from all over the United States, with some foreigners. 
The dominant elements were the first settlers, the border south 

16 Manuscript reminiscences of Mrs. E. M. D. Anderson. 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


159 


immigrants, and the immigrants from the eastern section of the 
south. The first settlers who came during the Spanish rule, be¬ 
fore and during the American revolution, were loyalists or neu¬ 
trals from Georgia, the Carolinas, New England, and a few from 
other states. Settling near the Mississippi river, they lived a 
comfortable, plain life, raising tobacco, indigo, cotton, and com. 
Cattle were plentiful; fine orchards were common; and ‘‘no locks 
were used.’’ 

About 1790 began a second migration which lasted for many 
years. The newcomers were strenuous Americans who took ad¬ 
vantage of the Spanish liberality in regard to land grants, and 
who believed that by nature this territory belonged to the United 
States. Some of these came by river from Virginia, Kentucky 
and Tennessee, and others by land from the eastern south. This 
migration placed the border south immigrants next to the river 
among the first settlers, whom they in time absorbed, while just 
back of them on less fertile land came the Carolinians and 
Georgians, who usually were poorer people. As these settle¬ 
ments pushed back from the Mississippi to the eastward, similar 
settlements, though not so wealthy, were creeping westward 
from the Tombigbee. 

A third region of settlement, developed in the first quarter 
of the nineteenth century, was the Pearl river country. It was 
settled by poor people from Georgia and the Carolinas, who, 
running before the advance of slave labor and unable to pur¬ 
chase fertile lands, turned aside into the open, poor, pine lands 
which were suited to the grazing of cattle and which furnished 
hunting grounds for the unprogressive men with whom farming 
was only an incidental occupation. These poor and illiterate 
people finally filled the entire central region of the state from 
south to north, and were usually not in sympathy with the 
wealthy river countries, a fact of considerable importance in the 
later political career of Jefferson Davis, who understood both 
sections. 

Wilkinson county, in the extreme southwestern part of the 
territory, was sparsely settled when Samuel Davis went to 
Woodville. He located between the border southerners on the 
rich lands next the river and the Georgians and Carolinians on 
the pine lands further east. Wilkinson was not one of the 


160 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


wealthy counties; it felt strongly the influences of the rich river 
settlements and yet to a certain extent its population sympa¬ 
thized with the Pearl river people. The political, commercial, 
and social centres in this part of the southwest were Natchez 
and Washington. Natchez was more of a center for western 
travel and river trade while Washington was the social capital. 
Natchez had a motley population of all sorts and conditions; 
Washington possessed a more reflned society, good schools and 
a wealthy people; it was famous for politics, social gatherings, 
dinners, and duels. After 1802 when it became the territorial 
capital it was the haunt of politicians and lawyers who thronged 
the southwest in the ‘‘flush times.The heavy immigration af¬ 
ter the war of 1812 broke up the simple social organization of 
the early settlers, and for a generation conditions in southwest¬ 
ern Mississippi were somewhat chaotic; in turmoil, whiskey¬ 
drinking and violence this section resembled for a time a far 
western mining district; law suits were frequent; politics and 
political methods something extraordinary.^^ 

The Davis family was of the sound stock that in half a century 
overran the southwest from Georgia to California. Samuel 
Davis had much of the frontiersman’s dislike for settled com¬ 
munities and a desire for trying new places. But after the third 
migration the needs of his large family caused him to settle per¬ 
manently. He was not wealthy, but land was cheap, and he had 
gradually acquired enough negroes to till his farm under his own 
oversight. Soon after settling at Woodville the older sons and 
daughters began to marry, and to each, upon leaving, was given 
a negro man or woman. So far as known this was all that any 
of the children ever received from the Woodville estate. Three 
of the older brothers of Jefferson Davis served in the war of 
1812. Two of them, who were with Jackson, at the battle of 
New Orleans, were officially commended for gallantry. When 
the British were making ready to attack New Orleans the men 
of Wilkinson county, volunteered so freely that the county court 
was forced to order a draft for the purpose of keeping enough 

17 J. F. H. Claiborne, Mississippi as a province, territory, and state (Jackson, 
1880), 331; Edward Mayes, ‘'History of education in Mississippi,^’ in United 
States bureau of education. Circular of information (Washington, 1899), number 24 
19-21; Joseph G. Baldwin, The flush times of Alabama and Mississippi (New York 
and London, 1853), 47-50, 56, 57. 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


161 


men at home to guard the community. This draft of men to 
stay at home stopped the other adult brother who was preparing 
to join the army at New Orleans.^® On the Davis farm cotton 
was the principal product, and Natchez was the market for it. 
Samuel Davis was his own overseer and in spite of his former 
restlessness became a good farmer. His sons assisted him on 
the farm; the housework was done by negro women and girls 
under direction of Mrs. Davis and Aunt Charity, the colored 
cook. 

When not at school young Jefferson sometimes picked cotton, 
but he was so often absent that it is probable that he did not be¬ 
come very familiar with the work and the labor system.^® He 
certainly enjoyed the usual boyish amusements of the time and 
place, but only a few incidents of this period of his life have 
come down to us. He was much interested in chicken fighting 
and, as he said late in life, he saw ‘^only too much of it until 
found out and forbidden by his parents.’’^® He was fond of 
dogs, horses, and other domestic animals, and in later life was 
regarded as an authority in regard to their habits and breeds. 
Hunting and fishing were common sports. Near the Davis 
family lived a Baptist preacher named Irion, whose son. Bob, 
was one of Davises playmates. One day each went hunting alone 
and after a while met in the woods — Davis out of shot, Irion 
out of powder. Davis proposed an exchange, but for some rea¬ 
son Irion refused and tried to tease Davis, finally, in play, 
threatening to shoot him. Davis, who was never patient until 
adversity had its way with him, believed that Irion was in earn¬ 
est, and jerking out a small pocket knife dropped it down on the 
load of powder in his gun and made ready for the duel, saying: 
‘‘Now, sir, I am ready for you; I dare you to shoot.Irion 
made explanations and exchanges of ammunition followed.^^ 

Though his father was not wealthy the youngest son received 
better educational advantages than the others and better than 
most boys of the southwest were given. Jelferson’s first school- 

18 Davis, Memoir, 1: 6; Jefferson Davis, Bise and fall of the confederate govern¬ 
ment (New York, 1881), 1: 21. 

19 Davis, Memoir, 1:17; manuscript reminiscences of Mrs. E. M. D. Anderson. 

20 John J. Craven, Prison life of Jefferson Paris (New York, 1867), 265. 

21 This story was put on record by Irion himself. See Mississippi historical so¬ 
ciety, Publications (Oxford, 1898), 1: 88. ' 


162 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


ing was in the old fashioned log cabin school house in the woods 
a mile from his home. He and his sister Mary, Polly he called 
her, went together and carried dinner in a bucket. He was five 
when he began and she was seven, but he considered himself her 
protector and acted as such on several occasions. Together they 
attended school at this place until Jefferson was seven years old, 
and in his ninth year he again went for a short time to the log 
cabin school. One of the log cabin schools that Davis attended 
was taught by his brother Benjamin, who later became a physi¬ 
cian. Nearly fifty years later one of his surviving schoolmates 
had only the usual recollection of him as ‘‘a good little boy.^^ 
The teachers in such schools were seldom educated men. The 
three B’s made up the curriculum and few teachers had mastered 
more than these branches; some were quite weak in ‘ ‘ rithmetic, ^ ’ 
and all Davis’ teachers must have been, for when he went to 
West Point he knew little of that subject except such principles 
as he had learned in the study of algebra. The masters of that 
time believed firmly that a student must be beaten in order to 
make him learn. Davis saw so much of this discipline that in 
later life he always denounced such methods as barbarous. 

In these schools textbooks were few and expensive, and most 
of the instruction was by dictation or in writing. The teacher 
^‘set copies” of a-b-c’s in a copy book until the child learned to 
write. After that he would write down or dictate a lesson 
which the pupil copied. When sufficiently advanced the study 
of arithmetic was begun. In this subject usually no text was 
used; the master taught orally and in writing the simplest pro¬ 
cesses of addition, subtraction, and sometimes multiplication and 
division. The teacher could not explain principles; he sim^Jy 
followed set rules. Only the barest elements of an education 
could be secured at the country school of that period. Though 
called public” schools, they were not free; the teacher was paid 
in money, produce, and sometimes given board for a week at 
each place by the patrons of the school.*^ 

During the summer of 1815, when young Davis was seven 
years old, his father decided to send him back to Kentucky to 

22 Mrs. Sarah Eobert (Grimball) Wright. 

23 See Davis’s own account in Davis, Memoir, 1: 9-19. There is no foundation in 
fact, I think, for the tradition that Davis attended a school at Greenville conducted 
by S. S. Prentiss. 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


163 


a better school. His mother was absent at the time and knew 
nothing of this arrangment, to which, on account of her son^s 
extreme youth, she would not have consented. The young 
school boy traveled with the party of Major Hinds, who after 
the close of the war was going to Kentucky with some relatives, 
among whom was his own son, a boy about the age of Davis. 
At that time there were no regular steamers on the Mississippi, 
and most of the travel northward was overland along the roads 
and trails broken by the streams of immigrants who were going 
into the southwest. Many people walked, a few went in wagons, 
but most of them traveled on horseback. The party of Major 
Hinds chose the last method of transportation. Pack animals 
carried baggage and supplies for camping out. The two boys 
rode ponies, and tradition relates that when either was tired he 
was rested by being taken up by Major Hinds in a. basket on 
his saddle horn. The trip of several hundred miles was tedious 
and weeks were consumed on the journey. At night the party 
stayed at the rude inns, or ‘‘stands’^ in the Indian country, 
sometimes at settlers’ houses, and often camped in the woods. 
Going otf to school was then a serious matter. 

The monotonous journey was broken in Tennessee by a visit 
to General Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage. Major Hinds 
had a few months before commanded the Mississippi horsemen 
in the battle of New Orleans, and his commander made him so 
welcome that a stay of some weeks was made. The young school 
boy was impressed by the general’s gentle and considerate” 
manners, by his ‘‘unruffled and wellbred courtesy.” The lonely 
boy remembered with affection, Mrs. Jackson, the kindly hos¬ 
tess. Late in Life Davis wrote that he never heard Jackson 
swear, that he always said grace before meals, and that “in me 
he inspired reverence and affection that has remained with me 
through my whole life. ’ ’ 

The school to which Jefferson Davis was sent in 1815-1816 
was the college of St. Thomas Aquinas, a Roman Catholic in¬ 
stitution connected with the Dominican convent of St. Rose, 
near Springfield, Kentucky."" When one remembers that Sam¬ 
uel Davis and his wife were Baptists and that there was then in 

24 Davis, Memoir, 1: 11-12. ^ 

25 Just thirty miles to the west lived, at this time, Abraham Lincoln, half a year 
younger than Davis. 


164 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


most places a prejudice against Catholics it is remarkable that 
they sent their son to a Catholic school. To explain this it is 
necessary to describe the religious conditions in Kentucky in 
the early part of the nineteenth century. In the first place the 
Protestant sects were in a state of fiuidity, a chaos of small de¬ 
nominations fighting each other bitterly, and by their discords 
weakening their churches, injuring the reputation and influence 
of their ministers, and ruining all serious attempts to develop 
Protestant schools. The disgust of the majority of the people 
at the warfare of the sects and the peculiar revival methods re¬ 
sulted in much indifference in regard to church matters, as is 
shown by the fact that in 1820 there were in Kentucky only 
about 40,000 church members out of a population of 564,000. 
Such conditions caused many to look with favor on the better 
conducted, quieter. Catholic institutions. Most of the Catholics 
had come from Maryland and had settled in groups, thus mak¬ 
ing conditions more favorable for the support of churches and 
schools, and a growing friendship toward Catholics was dis¬ 
cernible. Protestants began to assist in building Catholic 
schools. When disputes over doctrine had broken up a Pro¬ 
testant congregation, a priest would sometimes be asked to of¬ 
ficiate in the deserted church. The educated priesthood was 
another influence favorable to the Catholics. 

The school at St. Eose, named in honor of Thomas Aquinas, 
was founded in 1807 by four Dominicans, all of whom later 
were Davis’s teachers: Edward Fenwick, afterwards first 
bishop of Cincinnati, Thomas Wilson, head of the school when 
Davis was there, William Eaymond Tuite, and Eichard Angier. 
All were Englishmen except Fenwick, who came from Maryland. 
Both Catholics and Protestants helped Father Fenwick bum 
the bricks needed to build the church, which was for a long time 
the largest Catholic church in Kentucky, and the college, which 
was the first Dominican institution in the United States. 
Father Fenwick wrote that in May, 1807, he ‘‘opened a small 
nursery” for the future convent with twenty-six boys in atten¬ 
dance— twelve Catholics studying for the priesthood, two pay 
students at $100 each, and ten poor boys of both religions. The 
tuition for pay students was $100, and for Davis the sum was 
paid by Charles B. Green of Bardstown, who was his guardian 


1915-1916 Early Life of Jefferson Davis 165 

during the two years. Other students frequently paid fees in 
corn, bacon and beef, and some gave the horses and saddles on 
which they had ridden to school, while others worked on the 
farms or in the mills belonging to the monastery. By Davis’ 
time the institution had accumulated a considerable property in 
lands, buildings, cattle, mills, and slaves. The theological 
students worked diligently with ax and hoe and also assisted in 
the school work. Those who taught in the college while Davis 
was there and who were ordained as priests in 1816, the year 
he left, were Eichard P. Miles, who became bishop of Nashville 
in 1838,^® and who treated the little boy ‘^with all the fondness 
of a near relative;” W. T. Willett, Samuel and Stephen Mont¬ 
gomery, and Nicholas A. Young. There was such a demand for 
the young priests as missionaries that the college was forced 
gradually to reduce the number of outside students and soon 
Davis was the only Protestant left. Latin was the principle 
subject of study and Father Fenwick reported that the boys 
made good progress. 

The priests were very kind to little Davis, especially Father 
Wilson, Father Miles, and another priest, either Father Tuite or 
Father Angier, who kept Davis in his own room because he was 
so little. When the other Protestant boys had left, Davis de¬ 
cided that he ought to become a Catholic. He went to Father 
Wilson and informed him of his wish. ^‘He received me kindly, 
handed me a biscuit and a bit of cheese and told me that for the 
present I had better take some Catholic food,” and that was the 
end of it. Fifty years later a Virginia priest wrote, after a 
visit to Mr. Davis in prison, that he was very fond of individual 
Catholics, but was quite ignorant of the truths of ^‘our Holy 
Church. ’ ’ 

An outbreak which occurred in the college in 1816 furnished 
young Davis an opportunity to exhibit some characteristic 
qualities. The old priest who looked after him so carefully was 
not popular with the other boys and one night they persuaded 
Davis to blow out the light which always burned in the room 
after dark. Then they threw potatoes and cabbages into the 
room at the priest. Davis was suspected of complicity but re- 

26 By a fault of memory, Mr. Davis, in 1889, called Miles ‘‘Father Wallace. 
See Davis, Memoir, 1: 13. ^ 


166 


Walter L, Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


fused to give information and was sentenced to be whipped. 
The old priest, who had been mobbed by the boys, strapped him 
to a cot but hesitated to begin whipping. Finally he said, ‘ ‘ If you 
will tell me what you know, no matter how little, I will let you 
off/’ ^‘Well,’^ said the boy, know one thing. I know who 
blew out the light. ^ ’ The priest, eager to remit the punishment, 
promised to let him oft for that piece of information. A serious 
talk, Davis says, took the glory out of the proceedings and he 
afterwards behaved himself. 

After her son had been two years at St. Thomas college, Mrs. 
Davis insisted that he return home to Mississippi The school 
was now discontinuing the tuition department, and so with his 
guardian, Charles B. Green, he started from Bardstown on his 
way home. He was now nine years of age. Since he had come 
to Kentucky steamboats had begun to run regularly on the 
Mississippi river and the two took passage on the Aetna,’’ 
commanded by Captain Eobinson DeHart. The young school 
boy never for got the impression made by the new method of 
transportation. He was struck, he says, by the fact that many 
people would board the vessel, ride a few miles to see how it 
went, and then land and walk or drive back. 

The Davises were an undemonstrative people, but the home¬ 
coming of the youngest son was out of the ordinary, and it is 
interesting to read the account written in the last year of his 
life by the aged statesman: 

I had been absent two years and my brother Isaac accompanied me 
home, stopped at the village near my father’s house, and told me to go 
on and conceal my identity to see if they would know me. I found my 
dear old mother sitting near the door, and, walking up with an assumed 
air to hide a throbbing heart, I asked her if there had been any stray 
horses round there. She said she had seen a stray boy, and clasped 
me in her arms. . . I inquired for my father and was told he was 

out in the field. I, impatient of the delay, went there to meet him. He 
was a man of deep feeling, though he sought to repress the expression 
of it whenever practicable; but I came to him unexpectedly. Greatly 
moved he took me in his arms and with more emotion than I had ever 
seen him exhibit and kissed me repeatedly. I remember wondering why 
my father should have kissed so big a boy.^^ 

27 For accounts of the college of St. Thomas and of Davis’s stay there, see Lewis 
Collins, History of Kentucky . . . revised, enlarged . . . and brought down 

to .. . 1874, by Eichard H. Collins (Covington, 1878), 1: 488; Spalding, Sketch- 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


167 


The education of Jefferson Davis must have caused his 
parents much planning and trouble. To avoid the log cabin 
schools he was sent to St. Thomas college, but that was too far 
distant for such a small boy and he was brought home. Unwil¬ 
ling to send him back to the poor schools of the community Sam¬ 
uel Davis found the problem a difficult one. The southwest was 
then a land of few schools and most of those were poor. The 
conditions for study were not good, the life was too full of 
adventure and excitement. It was difficult to get teachers of 
any kind. It was a poor sort of person who could not do better 
at law or planting than at teaching. People built schoolhouses 
and offered fair pay, but this attracted men only for a short 
time. Frequently young men from the north taught while sav¬ 
ing money to go into law, politics or planting, but quit the pro¬ 
fession as soon as possible. Some of the teachers were vicious 
and immoral. So parents either neglected the education of their 
sons or sent them to the east or north as Jefferson Davis was 
sent in 1815 and again in 1821. 

It was finally decided to send him to Jefferson college at 
Washington in Adams county, Mississippi. This school, which 
still exists, enjoyed the distinction of having been the first insti¬ 
tution of learning chartered by the territorial legislature. The 
charter issued in 1802 was the first charter of any kind granted 
in Mississippi. The school was supported by legislative grants 
of money and land. It was named for Thomas Jefferson and 
has never granted a degree, two facts in which the friends of the 
school take pride. The surroundings were fairly good, for 
Washington was the old territorial capital and here dwelt many 
cultured people. The school, which opened in 1811, gradually 
developed into a respectable institution and by 1818, under the 
presidency of James McAllister, was considered the best insti¬ 
tution in Mississippi. Davis, who was here in 1818, liked Mc¬ 
Allister, who was a good teacher and was well educated, but 
disliked the assistant who held to the old flogging methods. 

es of early Catholic missions of Kentucky, from 1787 to .. . 1826-7 (Louisville, 

[1844]), 160. The Louisville Becord, May 15, 22, 29, 1902, contains articles on St. 
Rose by Reverend J. R. Volz; see also Baldwin, “Origin and progress of the mis¬ 
sions of Kentucky,^’ translated by Reverend W. J. Hewlett in the Louisville Becord, 
July 11, 1907; Deppen, Louisville Catholic family guide, 1887, 15, 16; Davis, Memoir, 
1: 16, 17. 


M. V. H. A. 


168 Walter L. Fleming 

Latin was the principal study, with some mathematics, writing 
and spelling. 

At the end of the year Davis was taken home again and en¬ 
tered in the Wilkinson county academy, which had just been or¬ 
ganized with John A. Shaw of Boston as principal. Shaw, who 
later organized the public school system in New Orleans, was 
‘‘the first of a new class of teachers in our neighborhood’’ who 
succeeded the “log cabin,” thrashing teachers. Davis consid¬ 
ered Shaw the best teacher he ever had, and late in life he was 
gratified, he says, “to learn that he remembered me favorably 
and mentioned it to one of his pupils who had been named for 
me. ’ ’ At the county acadeftiy Davis remained until prepared to 
enter college. In an autobiographical sketch Davis relates an 
incident to illustrate his father’s method of dealing with a re¬ 
fractory schoolboy: 

A task had been assigned me in excess of my power to memorize. I 
stated the case to the teacher, hut he persisted in imposing the lesson. 
The next day it had not been mastered and when punishment was 
threatened I took my books and went to my father. He said, ‘ Of course, 
it is for you to elect whether you will work with head or hands; my son 
could not he an idler. I want more cotton pickers and will give you 
work.’ The next day, furnished with a bag, I went into the fields and 
worked all day and the day after. The heat of the sun and the physical 
labor, in conjunction with the implied equality with the other cotton- 
pickers, convinced me that school was the lesser evil. This change of 
opinion I stated to my father when coming from the field after my day’s 
cotton had been weighed. He received the confidence with perfect 
seriousness . . . and advised me, if I was of the same opinion the 

next day to return to school; which I did and quietly took my accustomed 
place. 

In September 1821, Jefferson Davis, then in his fourteenth 
year, was sent again to Kentucky to complete his education in 
Transylvania university at Lexington. On October 1 he was 
enrolled as a member of the freshman class, conditioned in 
mathematics. Transylvania university, then at the height of its 
fame and influence, was a state institution, supported by ap¬ 
propriations from the legislature and from the sale of lands 
granted to Kentucky by the mother state, Virginia. It was 

28 Mayes, ‘ ‘ History of education in Mississippi, ’ ’ in United States bureau of edu¬ 
cation, Circular of information, no. 24; 23-27; Davis, Memoir, 1: 17-18. 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


169 


named after the colony of Transylvania which the western set¬ 
tlers tried to organize in 1775. The university developed out 
of Transylvania academy, organized in 1785, when Indian war- 
whoops could still he heard in the region, as a public school un¬ 
der the control of the Presbyterians who were supporters of 
education and who had an influence in public atfairs out of pro¬ 
portion to the smallness of their numbers. This denomina¬ 
tional control was distasteful to most of the people of Kentucky 
who were connected with no church, and especially to those who, 
in orthodox phrase, were ‘infected with the French deistical 
philosophy.’^ About 1794 this element secured control of the 
academy and put it in charge of Eeverend Harry Toulmin, a Bap¬ 
tist minister who was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and therefore 
^‘suspected of Unitarian sentiments” and of being ^Hinctured 
with French philosophy or infidelity. ’ ’ The Presbyterians for a 
while tried to break up the school by establishing rival academ¬ 
ies, but failed. In 1799 they regained control of .the state insti¬ 
tution, now called Transylvania university, and again sound 
theology, under the lead of the Presbyterians” was victorious. 
For eighteen years the university slowly developed, but the 
democratic-republican party constantly charged that it was too 
much under sectarian control and that it was also a stronghold 
of federalism. 

This feeling resulted finally in legislative reorganization. 
The self-perpetuating Presbyterian board of control was re¬ 
moved by law in 1816-1817, and a new board was appointed, 
consisting of well known public men most of whom were not 
church members. Henry Clay was one member, and Horace 
Holley, a Unitarian minister, a native of Connecticut and a 
graduate of Yale, was made president. With this reorganiza¬ 
tion began the ‘‘Unitarian or Holley era” which embraced the 
years from 1818 to 1827, the most prosperous period in the his¬ 
tory of the institution. 

When Jefferson Davis entered as a freshman Transylvania 
university was perhaps the most popular college in America. 
From seventy-seven students in 1817 the attendance in the 
academic department increased to 383 in 1821, an enrollment ap¬ 
proached only by Yale with 319 and Harvard with 286. The 
quality of students was as good as in the eastern institutions; 


170 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


the courses of study were as advanced and the instructors as 
capable. The law school, under Jesse Bledsoe and William T. 
Barry, later postmaster-general during Jackson’s administra¬ 
tion, sent out famous lawyers; the medical school under Dr. B. 
W. Dudley, a well known surgeon, was for a short time second 
to none and its library, purchased in Europe, was said to be the 
best in the United States. On the general library $17,000 had 
just been spent. As Davis afterwards said, the graduates of the 
school ‘‘were favorites in public life. . . When I was serving 

my first term as United States Senator, I was one of six grad¬ 
uates of Transylvania who held seats in that chamber. ’ ’ Dur¬ 
ing the period in which Davis was in congress eighteen of the 
graduates of Transylvania university, representing nine states, 
served terms in the house and senate, most of them for long 
terms. From 1815 to 1861 its graduates exerted great influence 
on public life, especially in the southwest. 

The faculty under whom Davis studied was, for the time, a 
strong one. The president, ‘ ‘ the very brilliant Horace Holley, ’ ’ 
as Davis called him, taught mental philosophy and belles lettres; 
Robert H. Bishop, philosophy and history; J. F. Jenkins, mathe¬ 
matics; John Roche, ancient languages; Constantine S. Rafin- 
esque, botany, natural history and French; and James Blythe, 
chemistry. The professors were paid $2,000 each, a good salary 
at the time. 

Roche, who taught ancient languages, was a graduate of 
Trinity college, Dublin, and from him Davis learned the “pro¬ 
nunciation of Latin and Greek taught in that college, which I 
then believed and now believe [1889] to be the purest and best.” 
Reverend Robert H. Bishop, Davis’s favorite of the professors 
was a “tall, gaunt and good old Scotchman,” a strict Presby¬ 
terian who with Blythe represented the old rigid orthodoxy, 
strongly opposed to the “new lights.” His orthodoxy led him 
to disapprove of Holley, the Unitarian, and ultimately caused 
him to resign, in 1824, and become president of Miami univer¬ 
sity. “His faith was that of a child,” wrote Davis, to whom he 
taught Bible history, “not doubting nor questioning, and be- 

29 The six were Jefferson Davis, D. E. Atchison (Missouri), G. W. Jones (Iowa), 
E. A. Hanneagan (Indiana), J. E. Underwood (Kentucky), and S. W. Downs (Louis¬ 
iana). 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


171 


lieving literally as it was written.’’ It was Bishop’s opinion 
that religion in Lexington and in the university was in a low 
state, especially after Holley came. In a memoir, written in 
his old age. Bishop says : ^‘The majority of the students, were 
at all times from families which made no religious profession 
and sometimes the influence both within and without the College 
were very unfavorable to religion and morals, ’ ’ but Bishop’s in¬ 
fluence was felt and twenty or more of his students became 
ministers. Davis was evidently less orthodox in his views than 
Bishop for he saw absurdities in some of the professor’s posi¬ 
tions. But he was attracted by the wide learning of the man 
and was much impressed by his lecture on history. Bishop 
had a high temper and sometimes let it slip. Once in broad and 
angry Scotch he said to Davis’s class, ^^Ye’re like jacks and if 
you can’t learn through the ears ye shall through the back.” 
That he sometimes did bring the rough western boys under good 
Scotch discipline is shown by an incident which Davis relates 
as having happened during his last year at Transylvania: 

A vulgar boy in the Junior Class committed some outrage which Dr. 
Bishop chose to punish as became the character of the offender. . . 

Calling the boy to him he laid him across his knee and commenced pad¬ 
dling him with the big ruler. The culprit mumbled that it was against 
the law to whip a collegiate. ‘Yes,’ said the old gentleman, momentarily 
stopping his exercise, ‘but every rule had its exceptions, Toney.’ Then 
he whacked him again. 

But in spite of Bishop’s hot temper and his old school ideas of 
discipline the students liked him. “We may respect Dr. Hol¬ 
ley,” said one turbulent student, “but we love Mr. Bishop.” 

One of Davis’s instructors, whom he does not mention but who 
should be remembered, was Constantine S. Eafinesque, ‘ ‘ the ec¬ 
centric naturalist, ’ ’ Audubon called him. Under his instruction 
Davis studied natural history and French. Eafinesque was an 
enthusiastic scientist but a poor teacher and was rudely treated 
by the students who threw paper balls at him and sometimes 
openly insulted him. 

The condition in mathematics imposed at entrance was worked 
otf by Davis under the instruction of Mr. Jenkins, the professor 
of mathematics. He was anxious to enter the sophomore class, 
for, as he said, “having usually been classed with boys beyond 


172 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


my age, I was quite disappointed to find the freshmen of the 
College . . . younger than myself and I felt my pride of¬ 

fended by being put with smaller boys. ’ ’ Accordingly, he took 
private lessons during his freshman year and through the vaca¬ 
tion in order to make up the deficient subject. 

Horace Holley, the president, was at the time the strongest 
educational force in the Mississippi valley. He was sanguine, 
enthusiastic, tolerant of everything except bigotry, which he in¬ 
discreetly ridiculed or criticised. In person and mind he was 
attractive. He was enthusiastic about Transylvania university 
and from letters written to his wife in New England we can get 
a glimpse of his broad plans: 

I may become a martyr, but it is not my intention to be one. I 
shall make sacrifices in many things but I shall do my duty and if I 
meet with success it will be glorious. The whole western country is to 
feed my seminary which will make the nation feel them. . . I shall 

act on more minds than any man on this side of the mountains. The 
materials here are in a very plastic state and can be moulded into the 
most beautiful forms. 

For a time it seemed that Holley’s highest ambitions would 
be realized. But soon trouble began and all during Davis’s 
stay at Transylvania the battle raged between orthodoxy and 
liberalism. Holley had hoped to unite the warring sects in sup¬ 
port of the university, but the truce was short. The church 
papers insisted that the trustees ‘‘had declared against the 
Lord’s anointed” and that there was now “no savior in Transyl¬ 
vania” for Holley was “a Socinian.” Another journal main¬ 
tained that Christ was of more importance to Transylvania uni¬ 
versity than Holley and “the gospel of more value to the west¬ 
ern country than all the science upon the earth.” It was 
charged that Holley taught “morality and the beauty of nature 
and not Christ crucified,’’ thus proving himself to be “an infidel 
and a perverter of the morals of youth. ” Fears were expressed 
that he “would expel Christianity” from the university. He 
was accused of want of faith in a personal devil, of “exalting 
morality and Christian charity above dogmas and creeds.” As 
obnoxious to some as his heterodoxy were the gay social meet¬ 
ings and the dances at his house, his practice of attending the 
theatre, and his objects of Greek art, the latter being especially 


1915-1916 


173 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 

offensive to a prudish age when ^^pantalettes were put upon 
piano legs.^’ The sectarian attacks finally resulted in the ruin 
of the university. While Davis was there the fight was hot and 
heavy, but the students, with most of the faculty and the board 
of trustees, supported Holley and the school thrived. That the 
circumstances were not conducive to orthodoxy is certain. 

The course of study pursued by Davis was as follows: 

Freshman class: Horace, Latin composition, Greek, algebra (La¬ 
croix), and geometry (Legendre), ancient and modem geography, his¬ 
tory, declamation. 

Sophomore class: the subjects named above continued, and trigo¬ 
nometry, “ conicks, theme writing, and Roman antiquities. 

Junior class: Juvenal, Livy, Latin verse writing, Greek composition, 
projections, dialing, heights and distances, navigation, nautical astron¬ 
omy, levelling, fluxions, chronology, surveying, history and declamation. 

Dayis left at the close of the junior class to enter West Point. 
Of his work he wrote in 1889: completed my studies in 

Greek and Latin, and learned a little of Algebra, geometry, trig¬ 
onometry, surveying, profane and sacred history, and natural 
philosophy. ^ ^ 

Among Davis’s college mates was D. H. Atchison, later sena¬ 
tor from Missouri, whom Davis described as ‘‘a tall country 
boy, true-hearted and honest, with many virtues but without 
grace or tact. . . I loved him when we were boys, and he 

grew with growing years in all the graces of manhood . . . 

a man of unswerving courage and stainless honor.” Another 
classmate was ‘‘my dear and true friend George W. Jones,” 
later senator from Iowa. Albert Sidney Johnston, later a 
warm friend of Davis, was then merely an acquaintance in the 
senior class. Another college friend was Theodore Lewis, who 
served with Davis in the Mexican war.®® Judge Peters, the his¬ 
torian of Transylvania university, was another classmate. 

Davis was a good student, and was popular with his class¬ 
mates. At Transylvania he acquired and cultivated a taste for 
general reading that in time made him one of the best informed 
men of his day. His fellow students declared that his lessons 
were always good and that he was never guilty of misconduct. 
Their recollections were, of course, rose colored, but we have no 


30 As captain of DeRussj ’s Louisiana regiment of infantry. 


174 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


contradictory statements to set off against them. Many of the 
badly trained westerners drank and gambled and were addicted 
to other vices, but from such faults the home and convent train¬ 
ing of Davis saved him. His manners were refined and polished 
and his friendly disposition won friends among faculty and 
students. Quiet but cheerful in spirits, he preferred reading 
to football and such sports, and, it is said, seldom took part in 
the latter. He was fond of fun and once played a practical joke 
on a conceited acquaintance by concocting and publishing in a 
Lexington paper an endorsement of this person for office, thus 
leading him on to fatal ridicule. In the early period of his life 
there is no hint of any unpleasant traits in Davis’s character or 
manner. He was well-mannered, quiet, popular, and could make 
a joke and take one.®^ 

He boarded for the three years with the Lexington postmas¬ 
ter, Joseph Ficklin, a friend of the family. Ficklin and his’wife 
made life pleasant for the young student, and having no children 
they came to regard Davis almost as their own son. Davis 
never forgot their kindness. The great statesman, Henry Clay, 
and his son, who was afterward at West Point with Davis, were 
among his Lexington friends.^^ 

At the end of his junior year he passed the final examinations 
of the junior class and won honors. At the junior exhibition on 
June 18, 1824, about a month before commencement, he was 
given a speaker's place and delivered in the university chapel an 
‘ ^ Address on friendship. ^ ’ Soon after commencement he learned 
that his father died. Samuel Davis had just returned from a 
visit to Philadelphia, whither he had gone to see about property 
left by some of his relatives. His mission failed of results and 
the old man returned discouraged. He went to visit his son 
Joseph E. Davis of Warren county, Mississippi, and died there 
after a short illness on July 4,1824, aged sixty-eight years. His 
death was a severe shock to Jefferson, the youngest child and the 

31 That young Davis had attracted the attention of his elders may be inferred 
from the fact that at the Washington birthday celebration in Lexington in 1825, the 
following toast was offered by W. B. Redd: ‘‘To the health and prosperity of Jef¬ 
ferson Davis, late a student of Transylvania, — now a cadet at West Point. May he 
become the pride of our country and the idol of our army.'’ Kentucky state his¬ 
torical society, BegiMer, 8: 40; quoted in Whitsitt, Genealogy of Jefferson Davis and 
of Samuel Davis, 62. 

32 Davis, Bise and fall of the confederate government, 1: 17, 447. 


1915-1916 


The Early Life of Jefferson Davis 


175 


best loved. His father had made considerable sacrifices in or¬ 
der to give him a better education than his brothers and sisters, 
and a few months before his death he had secured for him an ap¬ 
pointment to West Point. Mrs. Davis wrote, ‘‘No son could 
have loved a father more tenderly. When Mr. Davis was 
thirty-nine he came accidentally upon a letter of his father ^s 
which he tried to read aloud but handed it over unread and left 
the room, unable to speak. ^ ^ The following letter written to his 
brother Isaac^s wife who had informed him of his father’s death 
is the earliest letter of Jefferson Davis known to exist: 

Lexington, August 2, 1824. 

Dear Sister: It is gratifying to hear from a friend, especially one 
from whom I had not heard from so long as yourself, hut the intelligence 
contained in yours was more than sufficient to mar the satisfaction of 
hearing from anyone. You must imagine, I cannot describe, the shock 
my feelings sustained at the sad intelligence. In my father I lost a 
parent ever dear to me, but rendered more so (if possible) by the dis¬ 
asters that attended his declining years. 

When I saw him last he told me we would probably never see each 
other again. Yet I still hoped to meet him once more, but Heaven re¬ 
fused my wish. This is the second time I have been doomed to receive 
the heart-rending intelligence of the Death of a Friend. God knows 
whether or not it will be the last. If all the dear friends of my child¬ 
hood are to be tom from me, I care not how soon I may follow. 

I leave in a short time for West Point, State of New York, where it 
will always give me pleasure to hear from you. Kiss the children for 
Uncle Jeff. Present me affectionately to Brother Isaac; tell him I would 
be happy to hear from him; and to yourself the sincere regard of 

Your Brother, Jefferson. 

Mrs. Susannah Davis, 

Warrenton, Warren County, Miss.®^ 

33 In regard to Transylvania university and Davis ^s stay there see Eobert Peter, 
Transylvania university; its origin, rise, decline, and fail (Louisville, 1896), 83, 
113; Alvin P. Lewis, History of higher education in Kentucky in United States 
bureau of education, Circular of information, no. 25 (Washington, 1899), 35; Mills, 
Life and services of Lev. B. B. Bishop; Davis, Memoir, 1: eh. 3^ (Davis^ autobiogra¬ 
phical sketch); The Transylvanian, June, 1907; William P. Johnston, Life and ser¬ 
vices of Albert Sidney Johnston (New York, 1879), 8, 14; Jones, Memorial volume, 
46, 54; Florian Cajori, Teaching and history of mathematics in the United States 
(Washington, 1890), 84; KentucTcy Beporter, June 14, July 19, 1824. For much 
detail in regard to Davis and his classmates I am indebted to Mr. John Wilson 
Townsend, who searched the Transylvania records and the Lexington and Louisville 
papers. 


176 


Walter L. Fleming 


M. V. H. A. 


At this point some comments may be made upon the life and 
training of Jefferson Davis up to 1824. He was seventeen when 
he left Transylvania university. Six years of this time he had 
spent at boarding schools, not going home for vacations. His 
teachers, after childhood, were not southern men; at St. Thomas 
they were Englishmen, at Jefferson college, Scotchmen, at the 
county academy, a Bostonian, at Transylvania university, 
Scotchmen, New Englanders, French and Irish. Little of his 
life had been spent under what are known as the peculiar south¬ 
ern influences, that is, plantation environment. He had lived 
much of the time in rather an academic atmosphere. He had 
good training in fair schools. His religious environment, un¬ 
usual for a southern youth — Baptist at home. Catholic, Presby¬ 
terian, Unitarian, deist and Socinian abroad — probably resulted 
in a certain liberal but slightly indifferent attitude toward 
theological doctrines. Up to this time Jefferson Davis had 
about as little southern experience and training as it was pos¬ 
sible for a southern boy to have. And now was to follow a four- 
year period of training at West Point, still further removed 
from southern influences. 

Walter L. Fleming 

Louisiana State University 
Baton Eouge 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


r 


\ _ 

Louisiana State University 

BATON ROUGE, LA., U. S. A. 

Thomas D. Boyd, A.M. LL.D., President 


0 013 670 396 1 





The University includes (1) the Coliege of Arts and Sciences, which 
gives thorough literar\', scientific, pre-medical, and commercial courses; 
(2) the College of Agriculture, courses in all branches of scientific and 
practical agriculture; (3) the College of Engineering, courses in civil, 
mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering; (4) the Audubon Sugar 
School, courses in sugar agriculture, sugar chemistry, and sugar engi¬ 
neering; (5) the Teachers College, academic and professional courses to 
train men and women for positions as high school teachers, principals, 
and parish superintendents; (6) the Law school, courses in civil and com¬ 
mon law entitling the student upon graduation to receive a license from 
the Supreme Court to practice in Louisiana without further examination; 
(7) the Graduate Department, advanced courses to college graduates; 
and (8) the Summer Session, academic and professional courses that 
entitle teachers to credit toward a Universit}' degree and to an extension 
of their teachers’ certificate. 

The University receives its support not only from the State of Louisiana 
hut from the national government. It has beautiful grounds, numerous 
buildings, well equipped laboratories and shops, a large library, and a 
strong faculty. The thoroughness of its instruction and the excellence 
of its training are attested by the fact that so many of its graduates have 
risen to eminence in all walks of life. 

The number of students enrolled for the current regular session is 885 
—795 from Louisiana, 45 from eighteen other States, and 45 from sixteen 
other countries. In addition to these, there were 610 students in the 
nine-weeks summer session of 1916, 288 farmers attended the farmers’ 
short course in January, and there are 67 pupils in the practice school of 
the Teachers College. 

Tuition is free to all citizens of the United States, $150 a year to for¬ 
eigners. Board and lodging cost $13 per month at the University, $18 
to $30 per month in the town.' 

The regular annual sessions open on the third Wednesday in Septem¬ 
ber. The Summer Session of 1917 will open on the 7th of June. 

For catalogue or special information about any department, address J. 
L. Westbrook, Registrar, University Station, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 
U. S. A. 








































































